Page 222

A future began in lists, arguments and crossed-out names.

By the time the last task was claimed, Stellan’s face had gone pale. I squeezed his thigh once. He stood with me instead of pretending he hadn’t reached his limit.

Mara stepped into our path.

A heavy iron key lay across her palm.

I recognised it. The main gate key was older than the lock, blackened by years of hands that carried it for Stellan while always keeping it from him.

Mara held it out.

Stellan looked at the key, then at her.

“The gate is repaired enough to open,” she said. “Use it.”

42

STELLAN

The gate key spent one day on the table beside my bed.

Tonight, it rested in my palm.

Cold iron pressed into skin that had healed enough to close over my wound. The cut beside my heart remained tender under a clean shirt, but I could walk without Elias watching every breath. That was the nearest he would come to giving permission.

Bryony stood beside me at Harrowmere’s front door in boots, a dark coat and the expression she wore when she had decided not to fuss.

Her hand stayed close to my arm anyway.

“If I fall over, you may catch me,” I said.

“Generous.” She looked at my chest. “If you tear that wound open, I’ll let Elias catch you.”

The threat was effective. Elias waited at the bottom of the steps with a medical bag in one hand. Mara and Lenora stood near him, and several members of the court had drifted out behind them. Nobody announced the walk. People heard the gate was ready and chose to come.

Some carried tools. One woman had a coil of rope over her shoulder. Two men were still arguing about the best way to brace the damaged wall. Their voices dropped when Bryony and I stepped outside, but they didn’t kneel.

I was grateful for that.

The Crown’s destruction hadn’t made me less of a king. It had ended the power to make service compulsory. What the title meant now would have to be chosen, including by me.

Tonight wasn’t about the title.

I had crossed the boundary once after releasing the court, but the Crown had ended that moment by closing its hand around Bryony’s heart. Tonight, I intended to go far enough to lose sight of Harrowmere.

I could have come last night when Mara placed the key in my hand. The wound was still open enough to stain my shirt, and Elias would have followed with three people prepared to carry me. I waited because crossing the gate while half-conscious would have proved very little. I wanted to feel every step.

Waiting by choice was different from being made to wait.

It was about the key cutting into my hand and a road I had been unable to reach for a hundred and twelve years.

We crossed the forecourt at an easy pace. Repairs had begun everywhere I looked. Boards covered three windows. New slate waited in stacks under the west wall. Someone had removed the broken stone from the garden path and left a wheelbarrow blocking half the route.

Harrowmere didn’t move it for me.

I walked around.

The house remained at my back as we followed the drive. I felt its age, its walls and the old protective magic sunk deep into the land. Recognition brushed across my skin when I passed the edge of the yew garden.